iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

I watched this last year with live music! With an electric cello which made it even more heightened and creepy

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

She's a critic Blackbird (Turdus merula)

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

Slow traffic this morning in Ghent 🐑

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Also, there's a great article on these here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

We made a few terabytes of images, which were reconstructed to create 3D images over the past couple of years by Michel back in Paris, resulting in this paper! Doesn't it still look like he has the ~99 million year old wind blowing through his antennae?

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Also, the synchrotron makes you look like the most sciency scientist ever. (Pictured: a guy who pretends he understands what all this machinery is for, exactly.)

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

The technique to create 3D image out of the microscopy is called micro-tomography, which was what we spent most our time doing. It is useful if you want to look at fragile fossil beetles trapped in amber! Michel Perreau, a French beetle and fossil expert, asked us to image them for him.

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

It's a massive complex with a big particle accelerator, which takes a long time to get around - many people had little mopeds or bikes. Particle accelerators produce extremely bright, focused, and tunable X-ray beams, which can be used to "see through" objects and reconstruct the details inside.

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Two- and seven-spot ladybirds, cinnabar moth caterpillar (munching on poisonous ragwort to make itself inedible), and a funky long-necked small snakefly

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Harlequin ladybird pupas *everywhere* at the moment, with some stray seven- and two-spots.

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Very pretty horseshoe ladybirds in the malaise trap in the botanical garden. Look at their little horseshoe patterns! Small ladybirds are often hairy, as you can see. Their real size is around the size of a dot --> .

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

yeah and it offsets the sometimes frustrating draft rng really well

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Ladybird lab at the Cryptic Fungi workshop going swimmingly! We were looking for Hesperomyces, a small fungus on ladybirds we caught yesterday. #VisegradFund #TeamLaboul

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

A very successful ladybird gathering with the #VisegradFund citizen science workshop here in Ceske Budejovice - fridged for now, checking them for miceofungi tomorrow!

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Time to look for Marienkäfer (🐞) in Marienbad (🇨🇿)

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Arrived in the ghost hotel 👻 Let's see if I get haunted

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Trying to make plants work on the balcony which finally is bearing fruit (flowers?)

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Little ecosystem: a beetlehanger fungus on a harlequin ladybird eating an aphid that was eating a rose, all on the side of the river on a sunny day in Ghent (Hesperomyces harmonise, Harmonia axyridis, Macrophisum rosae, Rosa sp.)

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Industrious European paper wasp (Polistes dominula) scraping a tiny bit of wood from my balcony flower basket to build her nest good luck ma'am

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Colanders are a secret tool to be able to see partial solar eclipses

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

Tried to make high schoolers interested in biology, mostly succeeded (one was *very* scared of chemistry)

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

University open day for high schoolers choosing their future tomorrow. Putting up cool biology for them to gawk at.

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Spring in the Ghent Botanical Gardens (including a lone fisherman)

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Michiel de Groot @michieldegroot.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

🐞Schimmels op lieveheersbeestjes? Samen met MijnTuinlab zijn we ernaar op zoek! 📸 Fotografeer ze en stuur ze op! 🍄 Doe mee aan de zoektocht naar #Keverhangers en rapporteer je vondsten via @waarneming.nl of @inaturalist.bsky.social Meer info 👉 mijntuinlab.be/projects/37/